


a mother too

by Katherine



Category: The Giver - Lois Lowry
Genre: Dark, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:40:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Birthmothers are only a story the Community tells.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a mother too

**Author's Note:**

  * For [threeguesses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/threeguesses/gifts).



> The title is a portion of a line from William Cowper's poem The Winter Walk At Noon.

The Birthmothers are only a story the Community tells most of its members. A few Birthmothers do exist; a female Twelve, or two of them, or more, are given the Assignment each year. But each may give birth only one time, or five, or some other number, not the rule of three births and then life as a Laborer that most of the members of the community believe and tell their children.

Such a pattern would not sustain the correct rate of population growth now. Nor would a regularised set of births be enough, without additional tinkering during each pregnancy, to create the newchildren there are to be each year.

All newchildren must be formed to fit within Sameness. There is the possibility of releasing those who are not fit before they are placed in a family unit, but far better to remove them before they are given a number, let alone a name.

The truth is that those adults with the role, the hidden Assignments behind Assignments, have a much longer set of tasks than overseeing assigned females through pregnancy. They must select appropriately from the stored and registered gametes, adjust the genetics of each embryo, then reinforce in each fetus the changes first made generations before.

Then the testing of each born child. (These not quite newchildren yet, not placed in the Nursery Centers until thoroughly checked.) If the reinforcing vision restrictions that prevent not only seeing but conceiving of colour were not effective, or if a child reacts to music instead of correctly hearing nothing it can understand, it cannot become a child in the Community no matter if its own appearance is correct.

A few small deviations are allowed: light eyes for one. But they are kept to a small set of cases, and then carefully watched, more carefully even then all children are.

When the Community makes its children there are rules to be followed.


End file.
